preparations for the crusade, to the great delight of many

zealous adventurers, who eagerly flocked under his banner
in the hope of enriching themselves with Saracen spoil,

which they called fighting the battles of God. Richard, who was
not remarkably scrupulous in his financial operations,

was not likely to overlook the lands and castle of Locksley,
which he appropriated immediately to his own purposes, and sold

to the highest bidder. Now, as the repeal of the outlawry would
involve the restitution of the estates to the rightful owner,

it was obvious that it could never be expected from that
most legitimate and most Christian king, Richard the First

of England, the arch-crusader and anti-jacobin by excellence,--
the very type, flower, cream, pink, symbol, and mirror

of all the Holy Alliances that have ever existed on earth,
excepting that he seasoned his superstition and love

of conquest with a certain condiment of romanticgenerosity
and chivalrous self-devotion, with which his imitators

in all other points have found it convenient to dispense.
To give freely to one man what he had taken forcibly from another,

was generosity of which he was very capable; but to restore
what he had taken to the man from whom he had taken it,

was something that wore too much of the cool physiognomy
of justice to be easily reconcileable to his kingly feelings.

He had, besides, not only sent all King Henry's saints
about their business, or rather about their no-business--

their faineantise--but he had laid them under rigorous
contribution for the purposes of his holy war; and having

made them refund to the piety of the successor what they had
extracted from the piety of the precursor, he compelled them,

in addition, to give him their blessing for nothing.
Matilda, therefore, from all these circumstances, felt little

hope that her lover would be any thing but an outlaw for life.
The departure of King Richard from England was succeeded by the episcopal

regency of the bishops of Ely and Durham. Longchamp, bishop of Ely,
proceeded to show his sense of Christian fellowship by arresting his

brother bishop, and despoiling him of his share in the government;
and to set forth his humility and loving-kindness in a retinue of nobles

and knights who consumed in one night's entertainment some five years'
revenue of their entertainer, and in a guard of fifteen hundred

foreign soldiers, whom he considered indispensable to the exercise
of a vigour beyond the law in maintaining wholesomediscipline over

the refractory English. The ignorantimpatience of the swinish multitude
with these fruits of good living, brought forth by one of the meek who

had inherited the earth, displayed itself in a general ferment, of which
Prince John took advantage to make the experiment of getting possession

of his brother's crown in his absence. He began by calling at Reading
a council of barons, whose aspect induced the holy bishop to disguise himself

(some say as an old woman, which, in the twelfth century, perhaps might
have been a disguise for a bishop), and make his escape beyond sea.

Prince John followed up his advantage by obtaining possession of several
strong posts, and among others of the castle of Nottingham.

While John was conducting his operations at Nottingham, he rode
at times past the castle of Arlingford. He stopped on one occasion

to claim Lord Fitzwater's hospitality, and made most princely
havoc among his venison and brawn. Now it is a matter of record

among divers great historians and learned clerks, that he was then
and there grievously smitten by the charms of the lovely Matilda,

and that a few days after he despatched his travelling minstrel,
or laureate, Harpiton,[3] (whom he retained at moderate wages,

to keep a journal of his proceedings, and prove them all just and
legitimate), to the castle of Arlingford, to make proposals to the lady.

This Harpiton was a very useful person. He was always ready,
not only to maintain the cause of his master with his pen, and to sing

his eulogies to his harp, but to undertake at a moment's notice
any kind of courtly employment, called dirty work by the profane,

which the blessings of civil government, namely, his master's pleasure,
and the interests of social order, namely, his own emolument,

might require. In short,
Il eut l'emploi qui certes n'est pas mince,

Et qu'a la cour, ou tout se peint en beau,
On appelloit etre l'ami du prince;

Mais qu'a la ville, et surtout en province,
Les gens grossiers ont nomme maquereau.

[3] Harp-it-on: or, a corruption of , a creeping thing.
Prince John was of opinion that the love of a princeactual and

king expectant, was in itself a sufficient honour to the daughter
of a simple baron, and that the right divine or royalty would

make it sufficiently holy without the rite divine of the church.
He was, therefore, graciously pleased to fall into an exceeding

passion, when his confidentialmessenger returned from his
embassy in piteous plight, having been, by the baron's order,

first tossed in a blanket and set in the stocks to cool,
and afterwards ducked in the moat and set again in the stocks

to dry. John swore to revengehorribly this flagrant outrage
on royal prerogative, and to obtain possession of the lady

by force of arms; and accordingly collected a body of troops,
and marched upon Arlingford castle. A letter, conveyed as before

on the point of a blunt arrow, announced his approach to Matilda:
and lord Fitzwater had just time to assemble his retainers,

collect a hasty supply of provision, raise the draw-bridge, and drop
the portcullis, when the castle was surrounded by the enemy.

The little fat friar, who during the confusion was asleep in the buttery,
found himself, on awaking, inclosed in the besieged castle,

and dolefully bewailed his evil chance.
CHAPTER X

A noble girl, i' faith. Heart! I think I fight with a familiar,
or the ghost of a fencer. Call you this an amorous visage?

Here's blood that would have served me these seven years,
in broken heads and cut fingers, and now it runs out

all together.--MIDDLETON. Roaring Girl.
Prince John sat down impatiently before Arlingford castle in the hope

of starving out the besieged; but finding the duration of their supplies
extend itself in an equal ratio with the prolongation of his hope,

he made vigorous preparations for carrying the place by storm.
He constructed an immense machine on wheels, which, being advanced

to the edge of the moat, would lower a temporarybridge, of which
one end would rest on the bank, and the other on the battlements,

and which, being well furnished with stepping boards, would enable
his men to ascend the inclined plane with speed and facility.

Matilda received intimation of this design by the usual friendly channel
of a blunt arrow, which must either have been sent from some secret

friend in the prince's camp, or from some vigorousarcher beyond it:
the latter will not appear improbable, when we consider that Robin Hood

and Little John could shoot two English miles and an inch point-blank,
Come scrive Turpino, che non erra.

The machine was completed, and the ensuing morning fixed for the assault.
Six men, relieved at intervals, kept watch over it during the night.

Prince John retired to sleep, congratulating himself in the expectation
that another day would place the fair culprit at his princely mercy.

His anticipations mingled with the visions of his slumber, and he dreamed
of wounds and drums, and sacking and firing the castle, and bearing off

in his arms the beautiful prize through the midst of fire and smoke.
In the height of this imaginaryturmoil, he awoke, and conceived for a few

moments that certain sounds which rang in his ears, were the continuation
of those of his dream, in that sort of half-consciousness between

sleeping and waking, when reality and phantasy meet and mingle in dim
and confused resemblance. He was, however, very soon fully awake

to the fact of his guards calling on him to arm, which he did in haste,
and beheld the machine in flames, and a furiousconflict raging around it.

He hurried to the spot, and found that his camp had been suddenly assailed
from one side by a party of foresters, and that the baron's people

had made a sortie on the other, and that they had killed the guards,
and set fire to the machine, before the rest of the camp could come

to the assistance of their fellows.
The night was in itself intensely dark, and the fire-light

shed around it a vivid and unnaturalradiance. On one side,
the crimson light quivered by its own agitation on the waveless moat,

and on the bastions and buttresses of the castle, and their
shadows lay in massy blackness on the illuminated walls:

on the other, it shone upon the woods, streaming far within
among the open trunks, or resting on the closer foliage.

The circumference of darkness bounded the scene on all sides:
and in the centre raged the war; shields, helmets, and bucklers

gleaming and glittering as they rang and clashed against each other;
plumes confusedly tossing in the crimson light, and the messy

light and shade that fell on the faces of the combatants,
giving additional energy to their ferocious expression.

John, drawing nearer to the scene of action, observed two young warriors
fighting side by side, one of whom wore the habit of a forester,

the other that of a retainer of Arlingford. He looked intently" target="_blank" title="ad.专心地">intently on